23 FEBRUARY 1889, Page 21

SAVONAROLA.* IT is not all the merit of the historian

which makes this the most interesting religious biography that we know of in modern times. In the very name of Savonarola there still lingers some of the magic spell which belonged in life to his extraordinary personality,—a spell which made a poor monk, without other weapons than his moral greatness, overcome and hold in check for years his powerful and unscrupulous enemies, shut with him inside the narrow walls of a small mediaeval city. Even a dull writer with a fair knowledge of his subject could hardly produce other than an attractive narrative of this life. But when it has fallen, as happily it has on the present occa- sion, into worthy hands, it is difficult to speak of its merits without seeming exaggeration. We welcome the translation of this excellent work—which is all a translation ought to be- an the more heartily because there does not exist a good Life of the great Italian reformer in English. (We will persist in calling him a reformer, in spite of Professor Villari's protest.) The history of the great preacher, philosopher, and states- man who by his extraordinary talents, and not less extra- ordinary virtues, was able to overturn the deep-rooted tyranny of the Medici, revolutionise Florence politically, socially, morally, and make war on the clergy and the Pope when the Papacy was in the zenith of its glory and its power, is such an inviting subject, that it is a matter of surprise that some first-class English scholar has not long ago taken it up. The best English Life of Savonarola is that by Dr. Madden, of Dublin, and it contains many inaccuracies,—the natural consequence of writing history at a distance from the scene of action after the lapse of centuries. Dr. Madden was also hampered by his stiff Irish orthodoxy. It is a difficult dilemma, trying to do justice between the great reformer and his atrocious persecutor, the Borgia Pope,—for if Savonarola's life was innocent, noble, great, and his doctrines orthodox, what be- comes of the Papal policy ? Professor Villari is untrammelled by any such considerations. He enters on his task in a purely historic spirit, without preconceived ideas, except a general conviction that the great influence the Frate exercised on his century was unrecognised. His search for truth is inde- fatigable, and it concerns him not if anybody's reputation suffers in the process of unearthing long-lost or forgotten records, letters, despatches, buried in public and family archives.

It is this that constitutes the difference between his work and that of most religious biographies. They are dull reading, owing mainly to the too reverent spirit of the writers, who are anxious to make their work symmetrical, without flaw or inconsistency which might disedify the Christian world ; and the result is as exciting as the act of contemplating a sacred picture or statue. Professor Villari does not think about edification. The Church and the faithful and his hero's reputation must take care of themselves. His business is not to explain inconsisten- cies and reconcile incongruities, but to search out every scrap of information that can throw fresh light on the period he treats of in his history. His method is the true one for the biographer who aspires to live as a historian. And his work, besides the grand central fact of being an accurate, trust- worthy authority, gains sevenfold in interest. The marble saint, standing aloft in cold perfection, seems above and beyond human sympathy; he cannot awaken the lively in- terest, the sense of kinship, which stirs in us when we see before us a living, acting, thinking, suffering man, full of vital energy, and some weaknesses intermingled with his true greatness and nobility of soul.

Professor Villari, who now presents to the Italian and English public a new edition of his Life of Savonarola, with such improvements as fresh discoveries during the last twenty-five

• Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola By Professor Pasquale Villari. Translated by Linda Villnri. With Portraits and Must ations. 2 rob. London : T. Fisher Unwin.

years have enabled him to add, has bestowed a great gift on all who are interested in that most interesting period of Italian history. And, though far from being a hero-worshipper, his love of truth has made him lay bare all the vile intrigues and conspiracies by which Savonarola was persecuted, done to death, and his memory calumniated as a half-impostor, half- fanatic, for ages. He proves triumphantly that he was not, as he has been falsely represented, the enemy of the Italian Renaissance. All the greatest and best men of the time loved and admired him. He was surrounded by scholars, poets, artists, philosophers—was himself a scholar, poet, and philosopher—but he saw and felt the inherent defects of the movement which was leading to its decay. He valued learning and art as much as the Pagan worshippers of antiquity, who, with all their cynical scepticism, believed in astrology, amulets, and all sorts of grovelling superstitions. Savonarola was a bold, original thinker, and dared not only to hold Christianity as the highest and noblest of all studies, but to condemn the slavish imitation of the ancients in poetry and art as well as philosophy :—

" Some have so narrowed their minds and fettered them with the chains of antiquity, that not only do they refuse to speak save as the ancients spoke, but will say nothing that has not been said by them. What reasoning is this,—what new power of argument ?—That if the ancients spoke not thus, neither will we speak thus Therefore, if no good deed was done by the ancients, must we then do none ?"

Not the least interesting part of this work is that devoted to the review and examination of Savonaro]a,'s numerous

writings and sermons, which let in much light on the inner working of his powerful and original mind. More exciting, of course, is the recital of his acts as a politician, and his terrible struggles to maintain the liberty he had won for the people, and his daily efforts to improve, cleanse, purify them, and make them worthy of that liberty and able to maintain it. The tragic story of his cruel persecution and death, compassed by every species of crime that can well be imagined, is related calmly, without needless rhetoric, but not without deep sym- pathy for the martyr who died in the cause of religion and freedom. Well may his biographer say that so long as men have faith in virtue, so long will their admiration for him endure.